• The final stanza/haiku is a found haiku comprising the transcript of a text message – as yet still unanswered – the wife of Ehud ‘Udi’ Goldwasser sent her husband when she heard his platoon had been ambushed during the start of what is now known as the Second Lebanon War.

Graying inmy lifegrowing oldlike stagnantbucket ofrain water with mossfloating on the top –oh, it's now sucha bad deal,except whenlonelinesscatches youchilled in themiddle of a sentenceby yourself.ticking awaylike an old grandfather clock,hands stretched straight in the airstriking midnightlike a finalprayer.

• Michael Lee Johnson lives in Chicago, after spending 10 years Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a freelance writer and poet and says he is heavy influenced by Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams and Leonard Cohen. He is presently self-employed, with a previous background in social service areas, he has a degree in sociology, worked on a masters programme in correctional administration, and took a creative writing course at university on a pass/fail basis – he failed. He has a huge box of “unfinished” poems dating back to 1965 – yellowed papers, wrinkled napkins and all, they await the hand of revival. Until recently he had not submitted any poems since the early 70's.

The Art of San FranciscoA scene of possibilityA mixture of every desire Country and urban sea and beachFresh and crisp with rainBright and alive with sunMysterious and intriguing with cloudsAn urban rainforest of action and excitementA cozy and quiet peaceful view of the bayLuxury in every shape and formSmall and largeDisguised and undisguisedA world of change and beautyPassages of the imagination's reality And this is San Francisco

Gliding gracefully and then brushing abruptly at the shoreStrawberry melon painting cloud streaks the skyleaving a path of faded bushy clouds behind

The baby blue glazed horizon left alone in a cool brisk eveningThe deepness and darkness of the painted wavesEvery moment beauty is born in static but ever changing form

A shot of moonstone light shines upon the hillsBeauty is alive

– – – – – – – – –

Web of Understanding

A wheel turning water over and over againIs where I am standingIn a forest of forgotten dreamsEvery person, every thing, every piece of life wants to feel respected and understoodSo maybe you do understandBut is that enoughBecause I know that it is only partialLet me show you something elseA girl lying helplessly, motionless on the floorThe day you learn to awaken her is the day you will understand herYou will experience selfless understandingA glacier that has frozen a river solid to the groundThe day you bring out the sunIs the day you will grow to understand that riverTo truly bring all the life back to itTo bring yourself backTo understand that river is to understand youThink if you could really unfreeze that river?Think if you could really understand me?

– – – – – – – – –

Black Rain

Defined as abnormaltoo much for anyone to truthfully lovetorn and ripped apartand taught to hatedrowning in the waterfloating lifelessly down the streamtrying to leave a messagea message to shock and enforce changebut change is only entirely possible for natureundefined unrestrained uncontrollablewe are glass statuesonly the strongest of us,the most beautiful don't breaklove is too great to completely understand.

– – – – – – – – –

A Melancholy DreamYour angel eyes gleam gracefulness in the moonlightlit by the dreamy streaks of clouds onto the skyanger, sadness and all emotions deteriorate into peaceful stillnessan expression of delicate memoriespainted and glazed into the bold radiance of the skyblue river tunes drizzle and trickle in the ear of hollow memoriestouching and tickling warmth of the heartecho of darknessthe owl chimes the hour of night and dayrunning in fields of wildflowers in old fashioned dresses and bonnetsin fading sunlightorange moon-cream skylight embalming the air with warm memoriestricking into the eye of memorypassing out into the time between day and nighther dress gently resting on the tip of the summer grassher strings of curls gently brushing against your facethe truth and essence of life laying between the seeds of earthending and beginning once again.

• India Badiner lives in Big Sur, California, with her parents, five semi-feral cats and Raindog, a sloppy, overly friendly Rhodesian Ridgeback. She is a graduate of Robert Lewis Stevenson School in Carmel and currently enrolled at the Big Sur Charter School. She has traveled widely, including Kyoto, Paris, Amsterdam, Shanghai, and lived in Rome for two years studying Italian and the 'sweet life'.

AnnaThe fiercest of lovers. Even in sleep, she holds me tightly in her fist. As if to be sure she's wrung the last drop from me. When I've packed, she kneels offering her mouth. To delay my departure if only a little.the heata bee nestles deeperin the pansy's pink folds